As head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from 2005 to 2009, Kip Hawley was the public face of an agency despised by millions of Americans. Today, he says that hatred is understandable because the agencys approach to airport security is broken, arguing that it should forgo standardized procedures and a focus on prohibited items in favor of increased flexibility and mitigating risk.

1) A cessation of telling people that the best reaction to a hijacking is to sit still and do nothing, it'll be alright.

2) Profiling likely hijackers via the ‘no fly list.’

3) Increase of sky marshals and arming of pilots.

That's it. Scanning passengers, preforming virtual cavity searches, making them remove shoes as they enter the government temple does NOTHING to prevent hijackings. A common metal detector and maybe the x-ray machine for luggage is about all the physical security you need.

We need to make it explicitly clear that any business, transportation or otherwise, has the ability and right to refuse business for any reason. Had security in Dulles airport been given that go ahead, a planeload of passengers wouldn't have become a missile fired at the Pentagon. And if that means that an airline won't allow brown people or gay people, that's their right - fly on another airline or don't fly at all.

And if an airline wants to be strip search air, more power to it - that's the requirements of a business transaction. Instead, we have a massive and unconstitutional police checkpoint in our airports who has a duty to find people to fine and/or arrest.

As for the passengers of Concealed Carry Air, I'll be on your plane, thank you very much.

4
posted on 04/25/2012 9:45:13 PM PDT
by kingu
(Everything starts with slashing the size and scope of the federal government.)

I’ve been saying for ten years that terrorists on a plane with the cockpit door locked pose a danger only to the people aboard. That would be enough to keep the plane itself from being used as a weapon as was done on 9/11. As such, there is no justification for security any more intrusive than that an any other gathering of a few hundred people — theaters, supermarkets, shopping malls, etc.

Airport security should revert to the simple checks of ten years ago, and then do as you say — sky marshals on every flight, and locked cockpit door for the entire flight.

8
posted on 04/26/2012 2:10:21 AM PDT
by Kellis91789
(The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.)

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